OAKLAND - McClymonds edge rusher Greg Kenny III (1) celebrates a sack. McClymonds and Lemoore played in the high school football 2-AA NorCal championship in Oakland, Calif. on Friday, Dec. 2, 2022 (Joseph Dycus/Bay Area News Group)
OAKLAND – With the score tied 14-14 and both teams seemingly content to go into halftime with the CIF NorCal 2-AA championship deadlocked, McClymonds senior running back Jaivian Thomas took a handoff and accelerated down the sideline for one of his four touchdowns in a 49-35 Warriors’ win.
One week after winning their 13th straight Oakland Section championship, the Warriors completed only one pass on Friday night but ran for 485 yards against a defense that was allowing only 17 points per game this season.
Thomas’ 300 yards led Mack to its sixth NorCal championship.
“Two plays before that touchdown, I fumbled for the first time in two years,” Thomas said. “I told coach (Michael Peters) that I owed him for that, and I got it done.”
Lemoore, which is located south of Fresno, gave McClymonds’ defense all it could handle. West Yosemite League MVP Ty Chambers threw four touchdown passes and for around 350 yards as the team’s do-it-all quarterback.
He tossed a 61-yard scoring strike to Kobe Green down the seam on the game’s opening drive, briefly silencing the Mack supporters while Lemoore fans popped gold and purple party streamers into the cold East Bay air.
McClymonds scored the next two touchdowns in the second quarter to go up 14-7. Thomas broke off a 41-yard score after shaking a few Lemoore defenders, and quarterback Deontae Faison punched in another rushing touchdown three minutes before halftime.
Lemoore tied the score at 14 with an Andrew Moench touchdown run from 5 yards out. Thomas’ 50-yarder with 52 seconds left in the half sent the Central Section D-II champs into their visiting locker room down 21-14.
“My team showed a lot of heart tonight, but McClymonds is just a great team,” Lemoore coach Rich Tuman said. “If we could’ve caught some breaks, maybe the game would’ve tightened up. But it is what it is, and I’m wishing McClymonds the best moving forward.”
McClymonds came out of the halftime break looking like a team that knew how close it was another NorCal championship.
Thomas ripped off ar 49-yard touchdown run to start the half. After McClymonds got a stop on defense, Faison ran the read-option play to perfection and scooted into the end zone on a 19-yard keeper. With 6:51 to go in the third quarter, McClymonds led 35-14.
Lemoore’s offense never stopped throwing punches, as evidenced by Chambers’ two 40-yard touchdowns to DeMel Turner in the second half.
But McClymonds recorded seven sacks on the night, and those big plays were enough to keep Lemoore at a distance.
“I’m just ready to get down there to Los Angeles and show what us NorCal boys can do,” said senior defensive tackle Malik Richardson, who had three sacks. “I’ve also never traveled to Los Angeles, so that’s really exciting for me.”
Another important contributor for McClymonds was Ferrari Miller Jr., who stepped up and ran for 121 yards and a 30-yard touchdown after Thomas was slowed by leg cramps in the second half. Between Miller and Thomas, and the heavy pass rush from Richardson and senior defensive end Greg Kenny III, McClymonds was able to hold off a Lemoore comeback attempt.
“We saw that he (Chambers) liked to run to the outside,” said Kenny, who had two sacks and a pass deflection. “We knew we had to pull out that dog in us and go get at it.”
McClymonds will try to beat Mater Dei of Chula Vista next week and win its fifth state championship since 2016. Peters, who recently said he is contemplating stepping away after the season, is headed back to Southern California for the first time since 2019.
“I’m still tired, but I still got one more game left in me,” Peters said.
